In this series we’ll take a fresh look at resources and how they are used. We’ll go beyond natural resources like air and water to look at how efficiency in raw materials can boost the bottom line and help the environment. We’ll also examine the circular economy and design for reuse — with an eye toward honoring those resources we do have.

While changes at home can’t solve the many environmental crises we face today, they can sure help. Through this series, we’ll explore how initiatives like curbside compost pick-up, rebates on compost bins, and efficient appliances can help families reduce their impact without breaking the bank.

Despite decades -- centuries even -- of global efforts, slavery can still be found not just on the high seas, but around the world and throughout various supply chains. Through this series on forced labor, sponsored by C&A Foundation, we’ll explore many different types of bonded and forced labor and highlight industries where this practice is alive and well today.

In this series we examine how companies should respond to national controversy like police violence and the BLM movement to best support employees and how can companies work to improve equality by increasing diversity in their ranks directly.

Compost is often considered a panacea for the United States’ tremendous food waste problem. Indeed, composting is a much better option than putting spoiled food in a garbage can destined for a landfill.

Are there too many obvious environmental impact reports being written?

The question arises after reading a study out of Oregon State University, which points out that — get ready — having children increases your carbon footprint.

The study, led by Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics, shows that an additional child has an environmental impact more than 20 times greater than any other environmentally friendly behavior an individual might do over a lifetime. From the OSU press release:

“When an individual produces a child – and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future – the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.”

In other words: people have an effect on the environment, and more people have more of an effect. Not exactly an earth-shattering discovery.

The study is not only a recitation of the obvious, however.

The authors have done the math of breaking down the relative environmental impact of, for example, having a child in the US versus having one in Bangladesh. It turns out the American child, living in the land of plenty, and consuming at an American rate, ends up having an environmental impact 160 times greater.

The OSU research also deserves credit for taking a contrarian’s approach to the climate debate, by pointing out that the most impactful thing Greens can do to reduce their carbon footprint is have less children. This conclusion, as obvious as it is, runs counter to both popular views of self-determination, and government pro-growth policies in several developed countries that are experiencing population declines.

Nonetheless, this is one study that could probably have been taken as a given. It reads like another tossed salad of the available data on population and climate change, or even just a 21st century rehash of Malthus.

For example, while it is true that a child born in Bangladesh today may have 160th the carbon footprint of an American child over their lifetimes, that fact is largely irrelevant, because that ratio is bound to change as Bangladesh develops, something beyond the control of that child or its parents.

Which leaves the study’s main conclusion, that having fewer children, wherever they are, reduces a person’s footprint. Murtaugh justifies it this way:

“Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth…Future growth amplifies the consequences of people’s reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance.”

Really? How many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth and are also likely to hear about OSU’s research? In my humble opinion, this is a conclusion that belongs in a high school economics class, not a university.

BC (Ben) Upham is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. He has written for the New York Times, and was a writer and editor for News Communications, Inc., a local paper consortium serving Manhattan. When he's not blogging on green issues -- and especially renewable energy -- he's hiking in the Angeles Mountains or hanging out at El Matador.

7 responses

If humans are causing climate change, it seems obvious that decreasing our population is the most effective action to fight the crisis. It is not talked about because it goes against the tenets of capitalism.

It’s not talked about because people who suggest it usually have a particular group of children they’d rather not have around. Since most modern societies are made up of women that have access to birth control, they are having less children than previous generations. If you really think less children is the answer, go deal with the men in societies where women are allowed no control over their own bodies. If those men would stop making babies they have no intention of feeding or supporting, with girls barely out of childhood themselves, less kids would be starving. This idea has always been a non-starter, for the entire 40 years+ it’s been suggested.

It’s a faux pas to talk about because of the obvious moral implications. Thing is, it doesn’t have to be. It’s a proven fact that as societies reach a basic level of economic level and when women are granted rights and access to birth control then birth rates naturally decline to about neutral.

The only reason population rises in the US and Europe is due to immigration.

It should be a primary issue of those who give a damn to work for economic advancement, education and womens rights in the developing world. WIthout those you can forget about saving the environment.

The Catholic Church also has to come out of the middle ages with regards to birth control, but fat chance with the current pope.

My wife and I have figured, because of this article and others like it, that since we are childless (we’re just too selfish and enjoy life too much to let kids spoil it), that we now have a HUGE negative carbon footprint, so we’ve both decided to buy Hummers. We could both use new toys, as our Chrysler Sebring convertible just doesn’t get it anymore with the top down on these super hot days, even with the air conditioning going full blast…we still get baked by the sun, so we’re going to try to trade it in as a “CLUNKER” (thanks, taxpayers!) and see what we can get toward the purchase of two matching His-n-Hers Hummers. I’ll report back here on how that works out…is this a great country or what!?